User talk:Drmaik/archive1 (to Feb14 2007)

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User:Sam Spade

English as a spoken primary languge

I did give support for my change. I wrote an 800 character paragraph argument on the talk page. Also another user about 20 paragraphs down gave a similar argument, but also gave links and sources. Ok, if English is the primary language in Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Australia (Australian English), the Bahamas, Barbados, Bermuda, Belize, the British Indian Ocean Territory, the British Virgin Islands, Canada (Canadian English), the Cayman Islands, Dominica, the Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, Grenada, Guernsey, Guyana, Isle of Man, Jamaica (Jamaican English), Jersey, Montserrat, Nauru, New Zealand (New Zealand English), Ireland (Hiberno-English), Pitcairn Islands, Saint Helena, Saint Lucia, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, Trinidad and Tobago, the Turks and Caicos Islands, the United Kingdom (various forms of British English), the U.S. Virgin Islands the United States (various forms of American English), and Zimbabwe.. then we should probably up the number of primary speakers of English by..... ALOT...... If the US is going on 300 million people, the united kingdom 60 million, australia 50 million... that passed the 400 million mark already and that's not including the other heap of countries that were just listed,and the actual article says only 354 million as primary speakers. I'm not saying that everyone in these countries only speak english or that it's their primary language, but the overwhelming majority of people in each one of these countries speak english as their main language..... And even if someone started with a particular language as a child, the goal is to identify their primary language, as in the most used and applied language to daily life. If you speak spanish to a handful of relatives, and speak english just as well to the rest of the world... I think it's safe to say that English is a primary language, or maybe a person could have 2 primary languages.... You can check wikipedia.com or other census verifying websites to any of the info I've displayed. Another intersting topic would probably be the influence of the enlgish language throughout the world and how english television, music, the internet, and other mediums greatly expand the engish language's territory. It's impossible by numbers that only 354 million people speak english as their primary language....

And the remainder backwards is onah, not noah

If you have a Doctorate in modern Semitic languages, you should be able to see that the remainder backwards is Enoch, not Onah. We're talking about the Hebrew here, not the English.PiCo 22:49, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, Hebrew. Enoch is חֲנוֹךְ. Let's remove the final letter. We get חֲנו (ħano). Phonetically that backwards is onaħ: which is the result also if you revert the Hebrew letters, unless you regard the vav as merely a vowel marking on the n, which is what you must be doing. But that's not putting the letters themselves backwards. In any case, 'merely' deleting a final letter and inverting the remainder does not make words 'very similar'. I wouldn't class 'butter' as very similar to 'tub' (doing phonemics here, not orthography): and that's more similar than the above. Somewhat similar, a little, may be. --Drmaik 16:09, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Nabiyyin, Anbiya

I think the Qur'anic verse uses nabiyyin rather than anbiya. Am I right? What is the difference? --Aminz 08:37, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

actually, you're right about the Quran. And that's why there's so much on the web about what it means: it's not really clear, meaning the 'seal of the prophet', not prophets, which would be anbiya. But this latter is the term that scores of Muslims have used with me (when talking in Arabic): I'd never heard the one with nabi(yyin). But it certainly is out there. I guess that when speaking Arabic people use a term which is clearer, even if it's not a direct quote. When speaking another language, using an unclear Arabic term is less of a problem.

Salam! --Drmaik 19:48, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

But Qur'an uses "nabiyyin" in other places to mean the "prophets" (va en akhaza allah misagha al-nabiyyin...) nabiyyin is not singular. --Aminz 21:08, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Could you give me the reference there. I'm guessing you're representing something like 'wa in akhadha allah mithaqa al-nabiyyin", which would mean something like 'and if God took the covenant of the prophet', but I can't find the reference. --Drmaik 06:02, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

It appears in for example 3:81; 3:80. The translation reads:

"Behold! Allah took the covenant of the prophets, saying: "I give you a Book and Wisdom; then comes to you an apostle, confirming what is with you; do ye believe in him and render him help." Allah said: "Do ye agree, and take this my Covenant as binding on you?" They said: "We agree." He said: "Then bear witness, and I am with you among the witnesses." --Aminz 06:12, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Sure! Thank you for your reply and I appreciate your civility. --Aminz 23:06, 19 April 2006

(UTC)

cancellation of tourisim link

Hi, i have just added a (choosetunisia) tourisim link to tunisia, and you have deleted it. Can you explain why?

We work closely with the ministry of tourisim and the site is of great service to whoever shall visit tunisia other than that it has useful information and unique features that shall be added to the site... its of great service for the tourisim industry in tunisia.... ( i will check this page for your reply )

Thanks

Yes, it's a commercial link, which is not appropriate on wikipedia, which is not here to provide advertising. I imagine it might be appropriate on wikitravel (I don't actually know their policies, so you'd need to check there as well). In any case, it would be better to sign in: your user id 212.56.128.165 has been used for vandalism and could be blocked. --Drmaik 21:16, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

The Map

Thank you for the correction. I will edit it now.--Fox Mccloud 22:38, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Alfred the Great

What is your reasoning for this deletion? --Matthead 19:04, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Thnaks

Drmaik, Thank you for rehprasing my edits on Ethnoluge. It sounded better after your edith. Mehrdad 17:42, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

You're welcome --Drmaik 22:37, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Article on Al-

Hi. I wonder if you wouldn't mind taking a look at the article above, and expanding it further, or adding any sources appropriate for our English Wikipedia. I've already built it from a one-sentence stub using the sum total of my knowledge on the subject. Specifically, someone raised questions about the etymology of Semitic definite articles that I just couldn't answer. So I'm trying to recruit other Wikipedians with Arabic/linguistic expertise, such as yourself. Thanks very much! -Fsotrain09 23:07, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Tunisian Arabic

I removed the sentance "Tunisian is also closely related to Maltese, which is not considered to be a dialect of Arabic for sociolinguistic reasons." in the article "Tunisian Arabic" however you reverted my edit twice. I do not agree that Tunisian is closely related to Maltese, infact I have visited the country several times and understand no Tunisian. Moreover a relative of mine was Malta's diplomatic representative in Tunisia for four years and he like me understands no Tunisian. If you still insist that Tunisian is closely related to Maltese, please give me a detailed reason. MaxCosta 17:25, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Arabic influence on Spanish

Hey Drmaik!

Thanks for your help on this article. It needs alot of work still... www.rae.es is a good source to find etymologies. I think that many words are missing though.

Guzman --Guzman ramirez 16:22, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Morocco/WS

Salam, You have been reverting the mention that Western Sahara is administred by Morocco to being occupied. The UN does consider WS disputed(not occupied), and the Arab League (including Egypt) do see Western Sahara as the Moroccan southern provinces. So please reconsider reverting to avoid an edit-war. Thanks.--A Jalil 09:21, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Arab World Change

Hi, your assertion that "Palestine" is a country in your Arab World post is entirely false. Perhaps you should read the posting titled by that name. The land formerly known as Palestine is now known as Israel, the West Bank, The Gaza Strip, and Jordan. The West Bank and the Gaza strip are lands owned by Israel, having been captured legitately in a war. Furthermore, this was a war of aggression by Israel's neighbors whose sole purpose was to kill every non-Arab person in the land of Israel and claim the land for themselves. If you read Dershowitz's "The Case for Israel," much of the history of the area will become apparent. In the future, there may be a place called "Palestine." However, now, there is no such country. To include it in a list of Arab countries is simply a falsehood and is offensive. Furthermore, the land the land that is the West Bank was historically settled and owned by Jews.

Arab world map

Hello! Why did you revert my edit to this image, I mean, the newer version is more accurate as it shows all major minorities in the Arab world. Thanks.--Escondites 05:24, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Your recent change to Righteous Among the Nations

I have deleted this edit, as for removing an inapropriate see also link at the top of said page, I was accused of being a vandal by User:FrummerThanThou, who generates quite a bit of debate. --Drmaik 12:54, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Language links

Thank you for creating the article Ethnologue list of most spoken languages. Unfortunately, many of the links you provided in the text do not link to articles about the relevant languages -- for example, English, French, German, etc. are all disambiguation pages. To take readers to the correct article, you should use piped links such as [[English language|English]], [[French language|French]], etc. --Russ (talk) 19:18, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

italian speakers

Please do not revert my change to the List of languages by number of native speakers. The table is based in part on Ethnologue, and the treatment of Italian dialects in Ethnologue has always been wrong. True, dialects are different languages than Italian, but people speaking Italian dialects are fully bilingual and their mother tongue *is* italian; except maybe some (not all) of the ~800.000 illiterates in Italy. Dialects have *never* been official languages of Italy, and were never taught in school. In fact, (also because of migration within Italy) nobody can survive in Italy being fluent only in a dialect. Sorry for not being clear in the previous edit's comment. 195.176.178.209 14:16, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Arabic

Thank you for improving my edit in relation to the "most spoken languages" article. I was unsure of where I could find a credible estimate for the number of speakers of Egyptian Arabic so I ended up not placing it anywhere. I think that the article is now more accurate and more useful than the previous version. Pedrassi 15:17, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks also for the info in the comment on gender. I just copied what was on that site I linked to. Live and learn... --RJCraig 05:45, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

French and Francophony in the world

There are not 75 million native French-speaking people, nor 130 million ( My mistake, Sorry). The true number is: 110 million native French-speaking people in the world (International Summit of the Francophonie, Bucharest 2006). (75 million is not serious, even ridiculous)

• http://bucarest.francophonie.org/
• http://bucarest.francophonie.org/spip.php?rubrique78
• http://bucarest.francophonie.org/spip.php?article147

"175 millions de francophones sont répartis dans le monde, avec 110 millions de francophones réels et 65 millions de francophones partiels". ( + 110 second language learning)

Don'n rebot, please, I move again for a good comprehension.

sincerely Busway 09:56, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Comments at your RfA

Hi Drmaik. I wanted to respond to some of your comments at your RfA:

as for edit count, I live in Kenya, do not have a great internet link, not always on - should living in the developing world exclude one from adminship?

If you have your own computer, you can do editing off-line, and then add your contributions when you get back online. If, at some point in the future, you can show that you have contributed significantly in this way, it is more impressive than having 1000s of little edits. Contributions to the encyclopedia are valued highly and it's not necessary to have a "high" edit count.

surely the quality of what one does (I've never been told off by an admin, never violated a policy that anyone's told me), rather than the volume should count: if I did not understand wikipedia policies, this would not be the case.

Certainly, but we need to see a demonstration of that understanding. If you can spend 5 minutes of your internet time participating at WP:AfD, WP:RfA, or a number of other palces, you will gain some experience.

I Haven't issued vandal warnings becasue I do not have the teeth to follow them up, but I frequently come across vandalised pages which have remained so for several hours.

I always warn the user, even if the vandalism is old. That way if he comes back to vandalize again there is a record of it on the talk page. If the vandalism is in progress, you should always warn the user. If, after several warnings, the vandalism continues, you report him/her to WP:AIV.

I think your contributions to the encyclopedia have been very good. If you give yourself a little time, you'll get the experience you need for adminship. Cheers! --Fang Aili ^talk 18:29, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Hey, Drmaik! I suggest you withdraw your RfA, it looks like you have little chance of passing. If you take the criticism that was specified there and improve yourself as an editor, I think you will definitely pass your next RfA. Cbrown1023 talk

Thanks guys, for giving constructive criticism. I'll withdraw but it's been an interesting process. Drmaik 06:10, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

You are most welcome, and I'm glad that you found my comments helpful. I hope you understand that I don't see any obvious reasons to oppose you as an administrator in terms of your behaviour, based on the edits that I've looked at, just your relative inexperience in certain matters. All the same, people would look upon you more favourably if you had a longer and more varied record of edits. Have you considered joining a Wikiproject? That might be one way that you could gain experience in collaboration and interaction with other contributors. You might also want to a bit of editing outside your normal topics, both for the experience and to show that you can successfully work with people who don't share your interests.

Just so you know, I have heard many people say that Wikipedians should wait until they have about 3000 total edits before they try to become an administrator. It's not a rule per se, but a common suggestion. I realise that this might be unfair to people who don't have a fast or reliable Internet connection, but perhaps you could try to compensate by making consistently high quality edits in a number of areas.

One last thing: many RfA candidates will leave short thank you notes for everybody who participated, whether or not they supported or opposed, and whether or not the RfA was successful. Support voters generally get something like "Thank you for your support, I am truly humbled by your trust in me, etc.", while oppose voters get something like "Thank you for your input, I will try to learn from your comments, etc." I'm not saying that you have to leave messages like this, but it's a thought. Good luck in the future. --Kyoko 08:34, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your note, as Kyoko put it: you're most welcome. Kncyu38 13:27, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi there, I'm not sure to whom your last message was addressed, but anyway I did try to give some suggestions in my RfA vote. I personally prefer to explain my reasoning in such votes rather than use brief comments like "Oppose per other user." Like you, I wish that other people took the time to explain themselves in their votes, and offer helpful suggestions. I'm glad that you find my advice helpful, and I wish you luck should you pursue an RfA in the future. --Kyoko 14:01, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

An Out-lier's Views

Greetings Drmaks. I was happy to give you my unqualified support for your RfA. Before I share my views I should explain that I am outside consensus on these matters. What I am sharing with you is my views, not advice. You will do better to listen to the opinions offered above in advancing your objective in becoming an administrator in WP. I do not require an ultra high edit count to support an RfA. In fact, I am weary of an editor who accumulates a very high edit count (sometimes several thousand) over the a brief period of time, say six months. To me this signals a possible lack of balance in the nominee's life. Editors with jobs, families and community ties that make demands on available time are more likely to show the discernment and judgment needed to be a good admin. I believe that such unbalance and over-involvement is the cause of much un-encyclopedic drama on WP. The comment you made about your circumstances (living in Kenya without continuous access to Internet) also raises important issues. I am also impressed (and a little envious) of your language skills, which are invaluable to the encyclopedic project.

I also do not "warn" or make threats to vandals. I will occasionally take a half an hour to monitoring annon ip activity on recent changes. If a review of the diffs shows vandalism I will promptly and without comment revert. I will do this up to two times with a IP before I discontinue, leaving the vandal in the hands of more interventionist actors. My intention here is that the vandal will not get any pay-off in the form of attention, and will go elsewhere. If the edit is prompt enough, the vandal may not even be sure they effected any change what-so-ever. By the time they say "hey look what I did" it is gone. Wikipedia appears to seamlessly and effortlessly heal itself. Those are my thought. Best of luck. Edivorce 16:52, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

RE: Garion96's RfA

Sorry, it was an accident. I thought I put it into the support section, didn't check it was in the oppose section instead. Will double check in future. Terence Ong 11:31, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Garion96's RFA

Thank you for your support in my request for adminship which closed successfully last night. Feel free to let me know if I can help you with something or if I have made a mistake. I would also like to encourage you to vote often (just in case you don't) on other candidates since we need more admins. Happy editing, Garion96 (talk) 23:56, 13 February 2007 (UTC)